Nicole Gleichmann
Nicole is a health and wellness writer who has spent many years perfecting the science of sleep. Now her days are filled with adventure and writing, and her nights with peaceful slumber.
Nicole is a health and wellness writer who has spent many years perfecting the science of sleep. Now her days are filled with adventure and writing, and her nights with peaceful slumber.
Getting enough sleep can be challenging for anyone, but it’s especially difficult for women as we grow older. As our bodies transition from our child-bearing years, we experience a multitude of changes that can make quality sleep seem like a distant memory.
Sleep is critical for our health and quality of life, so it’s important that we do what we can to clock in 7 or more hours every night. When we don’t get enough, we can experience brain fog, fatigue, and memory troubles. Over time, a lack of sleep can result in health conditions like cardiac disease and depression.
This begs the question: why is it so hard for menopausal women to get enough sleep, and what can you do to regain control? By the end of this article, you will have the knowledge you need to get restful, restorative sleep.
Menopause is a natural part of women’s lives that occurs once they haven’t had a menstrual cycle for one full year. The period after this 12-months is known as post menopause and the period before is perimenopause.
Perimenopause can start in a women’s late 30s or into her 40s and lasts from two years all the way up to 10 years. During this time, the ovaries production of hormones like estrogen and progesterone slowly decline. It’s this change in hormone levels that leads to tell-tale menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, mood swings, and sleep problems.
For most women, the most severe symptoms of perimenopause occur in the one to two years prior to menopause due to an accelerated drop in estrogen production. Following menopause, symptoms tend to decline, although lower levels of estrogen can increase the risk of health conditions like cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis.
Many women will start having sudden difficulties with sleep in their 30s or 40s that are unknowingly due to perimenopause. Some clues that you might be experiencing menopause-induced sleep disturbances include:
While it can be difficult to regain quality sleep during menopause, it’s not impossible. Understanding what causes these symptoms and how you can combat them can help you improve your sleep quality and get a good night’s rest.
There are multiple factors that can make sleep difficult for women during this period of their lives. Here we will review some of the most common causes.
Estrogen is not only women’s primary sex hormone; it also plays a role in things like mood, weight, and sleep. When it comes to sleep, estrogen is involved in both falling asleep and staying asleep throughout the light. When estrogen levels fall during perimenopause, some women will experience insomnia symptoms.
Hot flashes are one of the tell-tale signs of menopause. They’re caused by a rapid spike in adrenaline levels, a hormone that impacts the body in ways that can increase your alertness and body temperature. When adrenaline causes your blood pressure and heart rate to increase when you’re asleep, you will usually quickly wake up with a need to cool down.
Not every reason for sleep trouble at this stage in life is directly related to physiological changes in the body. Around the same time that women will begin to experience menopause symptoms, there are many coincidental lifestyle changes that might occur which can themselves lead to worry, stress, and insomnia. These include:
Because this stage of life is often one filled with lots of changes, the mental impact of outside events can themselves lead to insomnia.
Depression and anxiety can also be symptoms of menopause. In fact, women are two to four times more likely to develop serious depression during menopause than before. These impairments to mental health are brought on by hormonal changes in the body. (It’s also worth noting that women who have a history of depression are 4.5 times more likely to experience additional episodes of depression during menopause when compared with other women.)
Depression and anxiety affect different people in different ways. Sometimes, they can actually cause a person to sleep more, especially during the day. But in other cases, heightened emotions can keep a person awake through the night.
Another concern for menopausal women is sleep apnea. Sleep apnea is a sleeping disorder where the breathing suddenly starts and stops; sometimes, it can be quite serious, though it often goes undiagnosed. Sleep apnea often results in snoring, and it can be highly disruptive to healthy sleep patterns.
Sleep apnea may be caused by the loss of reproductive hormones. Indeed, postmenopausal women are two to three times more likely to have sleep apnea, compared with women who have not yet gone through menopause. In fact, many women experience fatigue during the daytime, which they attribute to menopause; often, it’s more accurate to say that it’s caused by sleep apnea.
Approximately 75 percent to 85 percent of menopausal women experience hot flashes, and those hot flashes last for an average of five years. Hot flashes are by far the most common symptom of menopause.
So what is a hot flash, exactly? It’s essentially just the sudden sensation of heat; it can sometimes be accompanied by a flushed or red face, and/or by sweating. Many clinicians believe that hot flashes are connected to changes in circulation, brought on by the dropoff in progesterone production. Basically, blood vessels widen and cool off, which releases heat and causes the woman to break out in a sweat. This sweating can happen day or night, and naturally, it can be a deterrent to restful sleep.
If you’re struggling with insomnia and menopause, there are a few lifestyle changes that you can make to improve your sleep.
Lastly, if you find that your symptoms aren’t going away, see your doctor. They can help you decide if there are treatments that you need (like hormone replacement therapy, or HRT) or natural supplements that might help you sleep better.
Comments (0)